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The 2012 campaign is the smallest ever

Strategists and observers agree this race is reaching a record degree of triviality. | AP Photo

Both parties have descended into the juvenile, albeit to different degrees.

Romney staffers shouted down Obama strategist David Axelrod during an outdoor press conference in Boston, with some protesters blowing bubbles in his direction. Yet who could forget the tonnage of Democratic tweets, typed over many months, about Romney’s intestinally challenged, car roof-riding dog Seamus, or the GOP tweets about Obama’s admission that he has eaten dog meat. Obama’s campaign disavows hecklers who’ve disrupted Romney events, but it’s not like their supporters are standing down or they don’t appreciate coverage showing it’s been effective.

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On Tuesday, Romney declined to urge his supporters not to heckle the president, citing America’s “long history of heckling and free speech.”

“This election may be remembered as the Bitter Twitter campaign,” sighed former George W. Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. “On the main issue of the economy, where the battle will be fought, it appears as if Obama’s ideas have largely been exhausted and that Romney doesn’t want to risk any bold new proposals, so we are likely to see the next [few] months as a furious and relentless exchange of messages that aren’t much longer or deeper than 140 characters.”

“The campaign also feels old already, even though it’s early in the general election,” McKinnon added. “Usually there’s more suspense, excitement, buildup and lofty feeling to the beginning of the campaigns. But I sense that voters and the press feel like the thrill is already gone and they are settling for a long, suffering campaign.”

Opinion leaders and major figures in both parties have called for an elevated debate about policy instead of a negative, nasty schoolyard battle. There’s still lingering hope that the arc of the campaign may turn upward once the nominating conventions are over, Romney chooses a running mate and the philosophical framework of the race grows sharper.

Yet it seems just as possible that the campaign will trend in the other direction, as Romney supporters grow even more passionate as it becomes clear the race is winnable, and as Democrats become even more alarmed at the prospect of Obama potentially losing.

It’s more than the microscopic nature of the messaging that makes the 2012 campaign a drag. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer lamented in a column last week that 2012 had become a “dispiriting spectacle” featuring candidates short on vision sparring before a public that’s deeply hungry for real leadership.

Part of that, Krauthammer said in an email, is because “neither party is fielding its best candidate, although it’s quite true that the parties rarely do.”

Perhaps just as important, the two camps are fixated on the need to counter each and every broadside from the other team and allow no hour of the day to pass in which their opponent is not prosecuting the argument more aggressively.

“There’s a kind of perfection of technique: war-room atmosphere; unprecedented abundance of polls; unprecedented funds to do polling, analysis, focus groups, etc. Technique has so far outrun substance that, in and of itself, it produces this tit-for-tat, ping-pong, almost hourly back-and-forth,” Krauthammer said. “The substance of this campaign remains basically the same as every campaign back to the Estates General of 1789. What these new techniques do to political campaigns is analogous to what the Internet and Twitter do to normal discourse: exponentially increase the ratio of speed to substance.”

Readers' Comments (127)

Why are Reagan Democrats and Conservatves so focused on removing Mr. Obama from the WH? It is still the economy that every picosecond is focusing these American voters attentions on Mitt Romney's message. Mr. Obama can not run on his failed record and instead he is dividing the nation with wedge issues and lies.

American voters are focused and Mr. Obama's agenda has been exposed. Just as a hand held magnifer brings the sun's light into a very small focused point of energy, Mr. Obama's Communist policies has focused and united the majority America of all spectrums together. IMO

For 40 years the republicans have fought an unlevel playiing field because of the press. The playing field is becoming more level, meaning that instead of Republicans having to be paranoid 24-7 about what the press might find some gaffe the made or as in the case of NBC, just cut- edit-fabricate a gaffe for the benefit of their extreme left wing employers, the DNC, while the democrats could snort coke and father children with campaign workers while married to others without so much as a peep from the dirty cop media, the democrats are starting to get scrutiny to and they don't seem to like it much. As always, scrutiny, rules and laws only seem to be made for non-enlightened persons without dilated pupils....

Just reading comments 1,2&3 above helps explain the negative tone of this campaign. The inflammatory talk of (especially) the right wing has infiltrated comment sections like they have Twitter. Personally, I suspect many of these authors are paid staffers. They have a consistency of tone, talking points, reading level.

loretta: "Democrats are united behind our President. "..................Looks to me like every thing Obama has done recently is designed to gather back in his fractured base. Of course they won't vote for Romney. They just won't bother to vote unless Obama throws them a bone or two, so he's got a box of Milkbones to dispense between now and the election...

Romney must go after Barry obama on his lack of ethics, his ignorance of business, his concealing his entire history, his acitvity as a marxist and socialist party member, his work to give away the soverignty of the U.S. to the U.N., his connection to the far, far radical left.

Romney MUST take the gloves off and reveal the ugliness and danger of the liar, racist hate and fraud obama. Barry is NOT a nice fellow but a treacherous street goon. The public will respond to seeing the shocking truth about obama who has acted like a closet queen his entire failed term of presidency.

Romney must go after Barry obama on his lack of ethics, his ignorance of business, his concealing his entire history, his acitvity as a marxist and socialist party member, his work to give away the soverignty of the U.S. to the U.N., his connection to the far, far radical left.

Romney MUST take the gloves off and reveal the ugliness and danger of the liar, racist hate and fraud obama. Barry is NOT a nice fellow but a treacherous street goon. The public will respond to seeing the shocking truth about obama who has acted like a closet queen his entire failed term of presidency.

FIRST, THE MEDIA HAS FAILED BADLY TO GET ROMNEY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS--SPECIFICALLY. THEY WOULDN'T EVEN ASK HIM TO RELEASE MULTI-YEARS OF HIS TAX RETURNS.

SECONDLY, MANY ASSUMPTIONS ON THIS CAMPAIGN ARE NOT BEING CHALLENGED OR EXAMINED BY THE MEDIA THAT HAS BEEN LARGELY COMPROMISED. I GIVE YOU ONE EXAMPLE:

GOVERNMENT IS NOT A CORPORATION AND NOT RUN LIKE ONE. THE MEDIA has refused to challenge Romney’s false assumption that as former businessman he is best suited to run America’s government than a President with no business background. Yet, there is little evidence to support Romney’s assumption, and the compromised media still happily go along. While some businessmen have done well as President, there is little to support the notion that businessmen generally make the best Presidents. Bush, and especially Cheney, had ample business experience. Look what mess they made in office (even Bolton says as much): they ran a buoyant, surplus-rich economy into the ground triggering the near collapse of the US and world economy! Remember Hoover, the Great Depression and “Hooverville.” On the other hand, look at the historical achievements of Presidents with no business experience: Lincoln, FDR, and more recently Clinton who took the country to the path of robust prosperity. Often, businessmen when they happen to become Presidents, tend to follow a model in which they increase their personal tax advantage, sell off chunks of major government assets to the private sector at bargain prices (usually to their supporters), lay off a lot of people (who then become wards of the state) and squander the nation’s advantage in foreign adventurism in hope of fostering an image of strength in international politics. This is an old trick. During pre-colonial era in Africa, leaders of major cosmopolitan European powers sat in a room to give themselves territories they never visited or known well. That is how businessmen do things. Again, look at the mess they made in Africa and Asia. Government is not a corporation, and should never be run as one. Business is all about profit; government is about the common good! Therefore, there are many things government do that business is not suited or willing to do. Partly for that reason, we do not elect our President based on the economy alone (a self-serving mantra for Romney and many Republicans). We also want a President that has character, empathy, one that cares about the rights and suffering of others. Washington Post Moraniss reveals in his biographical installments on Obama and Romney that even as a Mormon preacher in Paris, Romney was unable to connect with people and made few converts. We want a President that is smart about foreign policy. We want a President that we can trust, not one who is trigger-happy. We want a President that cares about all the people not just a few (Romney, without equivocation, embraces the Ryan Budget, a budget that cuddles the rich and persecutes the poor and middle class). Romney and Ryan pity the rich and powerful and “forgot the dying birds.” We want a President that tells the truth not lie when it is convenient. While we believe that corporations are not people, we as well believe that a President should not run government like a corporation, or the people suffer!

This campaign is going to get very intense very soon. Both parties are staking out their terrain right now, and doing market research on the best lines of attack. Focus groups are being conducted in every part of the US by both sides right now, especially in "swing states".

When the conventions occur, the campaign will go full force from both sides. It will already be pre-programmed with ads, flyers, events, call trees, canvassers, etc. There won't be much, if any, last minute adjustments (any changes to the campaign will already be pre-mapped and ready to launch should something untoward occur or a message be lost). It will essentially boil down to a computer driven battle between the two titans with lots of whistle stops and three debates.

The debates could loom large, but both sides will be well-prepared with one-liners and arguments, so the questions will mean very little since the answers will be pre-scripted. Thus, the debates will have little impact, EXCEPT that the Dem hype about how good Obama will be and how bad Romney will be will tend to set low-expectations for Romney, and he will rise above those expectations (the "who won" will be largely a subjective determination, and almost meaningless regardless of who gets "the edge" in point scoring).

Both parties will hold their base.The difference will be "turnout". While the Dems will mount a fantastic effort to get their people to the polls, that will only be noticeable in blue states. Independents will largely vote for Romney (60-40). The more spirited and enthusiastic conservatives will overcome the less motivated progressives and the edge in independents will give Republicans a significant victory. They will not only grab virtually all the swing states, but will pick up a surprise red state.

Dems will blame the loss on massive Republicans Super-Pac spending and their unknown donors, but will also say that this loss is a reflection of conservative racism targeted at removing the first historic black President.

Dems will blame the loss on massive Republicans Super-Pac spending and their unknown donors, but will also say that this loss is a reflection of conservative racism targeted at removing the first historic black President.

And the ignorance and infantile impatience of the American public. That should do it.

As one undecided voter put it to Democratic researcher Peter Hart in a recent Denver focus group: “I’m not sure I’m going to vote — it’s just a show.”

Yep, another correct assessment of Obama's America.....Under his leadership in Washington DC, our nation has become more divided, our citizens are more alienated from the elites in DC and there is more acrimony and coarseness in our political exchanges.....He promised he was the change we were looking for in 2008 that could reverse the trend and he has shown incapable of fulfilling that promise.....

For 18 long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said, "Enough," to the politics of the past. You understand that, in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same, old politics with the same, old players and expect a different result.

You have shown what history teaches us, that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.

.Under his leadership in Washington DC, our nation has become more divided, our citizens are more alienated from the elites in DC and there is more acrimony and coarseness in our political exchanges.....He promised he was the change we were looking for in 2008 that could reverse the trend and he has shown incapable of fulfilling that promise.....

This is excellent. If youi ignore the fact that the GOP has, since Clinton, had a policy of never, ever going along with a Democrat, never, ever compromise (death knell for Republicans, in fact), then yes, Obama has not brought us together.